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Renewable energy in construction: from niche to necessity

Turning on a light, flipping open a laptop, switching on an air conditioning unit—this all requires energy. For buildings, a sector that encompasses everything from apartment blocks to office parks, these demands can be staggering, comprising about 40% of global energy and 60% of electricity demand, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.1 Buildings represent the greatest potential for energy saving in future, according to the European Commission,2 making carbon-free buildings a key component of government commitments to cut the emissions behind climate change.

Though reducing a building’s carbon footprint requires shifts in design, materials and other considerations, renewable energy will play a major role in this transformation. Amid continued innovation in technology, business models and financing structures, adoption of renewable energy will spread quickly, according to experts at this year’s Big 5 construction exhibition in Dubai.

Building designers are taking renewables into account when formulating projects, both responding to and helping drive demand

Take technology, where improvements have driven down production costs dramatically, particularly for solar panels. According to The Economist, the cost per megawatt hour of solar power generation in the US is now on par with that of oil and close to that of coal.3 Ioannis Spanos, senior sustainability manager at KEO International, a construction consultancy, says that scientists have resolved issues with photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing that had them scratching their heads 15 years ago. “Initially the issue was how to put one layer of silicon on top of the other,” he says. “Now you just spray it on. It’s easy.”

The efficacy of PV panels is climbing fast, too: Mr Spanos says that the current 16% efficiency of products could double in the near future. But even a cheap, efficient product is useless without a market for it. It is here that building designers are taking renewables into account when formulating projects, both responding to and helping drive demand.

Jyri Nieminen, sustainability expert at consultancy Sweco, says buildings with exposed roofs are best suited to heavy electrical generation from solar panels, though connected structures may be able to utilise excess energy. “If you can’t install solar in your house, you could help finance the installation of a neighbouring system and realise the savings from a reduced energy bill,” he says.

Other novel modes of paying for renewable installations may boost demand further. Contractors are working with a new crop of sustainability “turnkey” firms early in the construction phase which finance, design, install and operate a renewables system throughout a building’s lifecycle, according to Scott Coombes, director at Alabbar Energy & Sustainability Group. Building owners then pay back the turnkey providers based on the savings realised from a reduced energy bill. Mr Coombes highlights the multi-stakeholder approach of such models: “Where a one-off installer may say, how can we procure the cheapest possible PVs, because if they break after five years it’s not our risk, here, the objectives are all aligned.”

Internet of energy

Until recently, government incentives for renewables were a driving force in many markets, though that is changing. Stephane Ie Gentil, chief executive of Wattaqa, an advisory, says that surging use of renewables is making feed-in tariffs, in which governments pay individuals for every unit of energy they contribute to a centralised grid, a financial burden. Another approach, net metering, in which individual providers can deduct the energy they feed into a grid from their overall energy bill, still incentivises the use of renewables, with less cost to governments who do not pay for excess energy. “Individual consumers in these markets must try to size their renewables system to what they consume—to hit zero balance of consumption and production,” he says, citing Dubai as an example of a net-metering scheme that went into effect recently.

Renewables can only be successful as part of an overall green building strategy

More experimental models are in the works, including energy trading between individual suppliers. “In Germany and France, we’ve started to see small clusters of buildings that are selling to each other,” says Mr Ie Gentil. The small geographical ranges these schemes operate over provide additional efficiency benefits compared to electricity flowing over long distances from a centralised provider, according to Mr le Gentil. He even envisions a future of automated energy exchange at the local level, enabled by so-called smart grids and the Internet of Things. “It will be like an ‘internet of energy’,” he says.

Yet renewables can only be successful as part of an overall green building strategy, experts say. For architects with this mindset, function must take precedence over form; efficiency must be baked into the design from the start. In the construction phase, materials must be used that reduce a building’s overall energy demand. For the building and construction sector to do its part in tackling carbon emissions, more attention must be paid to all aspects of sustainability, from beginning to end.